Loading of various objects accurately into a dispensable array so as to retain loading information presents problems that have not been satisfactorily solved by the many dispensers that have been proposed. Generally, these suffer from expense, size, and weight; the need for complex electromechanical devices; the need to adapt to information storing and transmitting technologies; and limitations on the variety of objects that can be dispensed.
Some dispensing devices have required loading of objects into columns so that all the objects in a single column are the same and the objects are dispensed from the bottoms of the columns. This limits the variety of objects available to the number of columns and precludes dispensing objects from any location within a matrix array.
Other solutions have used carousels or juke box type mechanisms, which are electromechanically complex and expensive. Drawer and locker dispensers have also been proposed, and some of these use machine readable information to identify loaded objects so that dispensing equipment can locate and dispense the identified objects.
All these suggestions are limited in the object packing density and variety they can achieve, are generally cumbersome and expensive, and create and manage object-loading information only at considerable additional expense. Such systems are also vulnerable to human error in loading objects incorrectly to create mismatches with the loading information. The result has left many businesses with unfulfilled needs for the dispensing of small objects in an efficient and low cost way.